Happy spring, Trails Society members!  Hiking season is here again, and we’re excited for outdoor adventures!


Invitation to AGM 2023

This year’s Annual General Meeting of Trails for Creston Valley Society (TCVS) will be held on Tuesday June 20 at 7:00 p.m. at St. Stephen’s Hall (306 Northwest Blvd, Creston). All members of the public are invited to join us for our AGM and the monthly Board meeting which will be held afterward. Light refreshments will be served.

Our amazing Treasurer, Leslie Kelner, has announced that she will be stepping down after serving in this important role since 2014.  Huge thanks to Leslie for a decade of top-notch volunteer service to the Trails Society! We are currently looking for a new Treasurer to join our team.  We are also looking to refresh and renew our Board of Directors with new people to help us continue with our important mission. 


Your support matters

The Trails Society would like to extend our deep gratitude to the volunteers and funders who have supported our mission to secure legal access to public lands and waterways in our valley.  The Creston area continues to lag far behind other communities in our region with regards to official public access points to our rivers, lakes and mountains. Sadly, the Creston Valley has ZERO regional parks (for more info please see the Regional District of Central Kootenay’s [RDCK] “Parks and Recreation Master Plan for Town of Creston and Areas A, B & C“).

For many decades, Creston residents and visitors have resorted to parking in unsafe/illegal locations, and usually scrambling down steep banks, in order to access Goat River, Kootenay River, or Kootenay Lake.  These unserviced locations have resulted in many years of litter, human waste, towed vehicles, and general frustration.  Public demand for properly serviced access points is now higher than ever before.  The Trails Society, a registered charitable organization since 2014, has succeeded in providing amenities for safe and responsible public use of outdoor recreation points. 


Our successes include:

Ka Papa Cedars Trail: an old-growth forest trail located near Kootenay Pass, with benches, picnic table, toilet, interpretive signage, and a footbridge across Summit Creek.

Riverside Wilderness Park: safe off-highway parking and easy access to Goat River, plus picnic tables, benches, garbage/recycling bins, toilet, and lots of space for walking and swimming.

Midgeley Cabin: an easy 2 km hike leads to a remote subalpine cabin accessed off Topaz Forestry Road, which can be reserved for overnight accommodation and day hikes to Mount Midgeley summit, during summer/fall months.

Martell Beach: Thanks to a one-year Ministry of Transportation permit, public facilities were developed at a site on Kootenay Lake near Sanca Creek, including wheelchair-accessible toilet, garbage cans, picnic table, and safe off-highway parking.

Our immense thanks to everyone who has helped the Trails Society to develop and financially support these important recreation sites.  With all due respect to our hardworking RDCK directors and staff, our regional government’s progress is being made at a very slow pace in providing our community and visitors with official outdoor recreation services.  This gap in services is why the Trails Society for the past ten years has been stepping in to help provide safe and hygenic public access points, especially to our local waterways.


Supporting First Nations Culture

Land use planning is a complicated job requiring input from many stakeholders. In April 2023, the RDCK released its “Ktunaxa RDCK Traditional Use Summary Report” (report starts on page 62), prepared on behalf of the Ktunaxa Nation Council and Yaqan Nukiy (Lower Kootenay Band).  This important document introduces some of the culturally significant First Nations sites in our area—including Martell Beach—and the public-use pressures on these places.  TCVS wishes to support the Ktunaxa Nation and the Yaqan Nukiy community to reclaim their cultural heritage. To demonstrate our respect for Indigenous reconciliation, TCVS will be removing the toilet, garbage can, picnic table and signage from Martell Beach.


Protecting Ecosystem Health

Unfortunately, this loss of public services at Martell Beach will be detrimental to ecosystem health—until such time in the future that public lake access services are installed by RDCK Parks.  During TCVS’s permit term at Martell Beach (April 2022 to April 2023), Trails Society contractors pumped 2000 gallons (over 7500 L) of sewage effluent from the on-site toilet, plus transported 33 garbage bins of trash to the landfill.  Martell Beach, which has for decades been a popular but completely unregulated beach and boat launch, will no longer have these public services available.  We ask all members of the public to be responsible beach users and “pack-in, pack-out” all garbage, including dog and human waste.


Please join us for our AGM on June 20.

Bring along your passion for local outdoor recreation, plus any questions for our Board. Creston, let’s build on the important progress we have made so far! We cannot allow yet another generation of young people to grow up without the benefit of proper public access to our treasured outdoor spaces.